Hello, everybody! I´d like to announce that this here so well documented conflict between B&H HCO and me is hopefully going now into a final phase and therefore, hopefully again, will be over soon.

Now, to begin with, unlike already said I will not go to France this autumn. Though my French is not bad, I can speak it fluently, I still don´t feel really comfortable in it and with France altogether (funny, I will stay now with someone in Hastings, of all things, for a few days, haha, speaking of). Although I had picked Colmar, (for which I had done already road-knowledge comparable to the standard of my Brighton-knowledge), a place only 50 kilometers away from my hometown Freiburg, in Germany, it is just too much for me at the moment to actually live and work in France, I will definitely need another year for that.

So, in the meantime it is back to the old bulldog´s snarl, I hope, where people are really warm-hearted and kind, (haha). Well, at least England (and Switzerland, of course) is like my second home and I have missed Brighton, and carrying out our profession in it, so much, it really made me sick sometimes. My love to Brighton & Hove and cabbying in it, as it turned out to be, to me is almost like the desire and longing for a very beautiful, but very difficult, treacherous and cruel woman, hell hath no fury like an HCO scorned... For - oh, these beautifully curved crescents, oh, those long-stretched and winding roads, those lovely lanes... but, oh, those bureaucrats at Norton Road...! Not to mention the worst road of all Brighton roads, ("Hove, actually"), the Burwash Road! (Home of the DSA, starting point for those dreadful tests, that certify your ability to drive like back in driving school, but once you have passed it and are on your job driving the first day, having a chat with a passenger about the weather, sports and the ladies (while simultaneously actually appreciating a really lovely specimen of the latter walking by), you´ll probably run over exactly that very tester that did have passed you - because you still are not fit and able to drive like a cabby can and has to.)

However, as you can see, I have become quite obsessed with all those B&H roads, yes, with the town-map in general!

So, no surprise really that I, as I had already mentioned a while ago, to settle this quarrel, want to deliver to HCO a standard of road-knowledge which is outstanding! (Because to me it is simply like studying my beloved´s skin in all it´s perfect imperfections, whilst gently caressing it (or better put, imagining caressing it, by looking at a photo of it, for the real one is still off-limits to me.))

I want to be THAT good that I actually in the end will be able to draw the complete town-map from out of my head, including all roads and streets and narrow little alley-ways and tiny closes, anything which is a road (so no buildings or parks, of course, or block of flats, which are registered under a house number) - and all of it true to scale!

I want to make a deal now with HCO now, a compromise, that in exchange for their expected generosity to make an exception from that rule in that special case and to let me do a renewal, instead of a start at zero, I want to show them a standard of road-knowledge they never had before from an applicant and very much likely can not even expect from an old stager, who has done this job for 40 years! (If there is one he or she should come forward and we´ll have a competition to crown a champion!)

So I have booked a flight now, am arriving back in England on the 8th of September, and in the days following that date I want to show up at B&H HCO in person and demonstrate to them this outstanding knowledge to the stage that is done by then, which will be me able to draw all areas, whichever they ask me, yet still with some uncertainties and only some of the smaller closes. Yet, I promise I will be perfect within another 3 months from there on!

If they agree, all is fine, if they don´t, then I will still resign from any plans of actually fighting HCO´s decision, although I have said I will do so for I know better now that this will only put me in the place of a querulous person - and with HCO denying me this compromise it would be them, the bellyacher, and I could fight an even better fight by not only following their rules, but even overdoing theim. So, instead of not having back the licence and fighting a grim fight to get it back I would already be back in possession of it and it would make them look bad, as heartless and pedantic bureaucrats, whereas I would shine bright as the guy who went the extra mile, all for the glory of well justified licence requirements.

I will keep you posted how HCO will react to that!

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

Why so? You pressed charges against me because I make you look bad? I wonder what your level of road knowledge is, Sussex. I challenge you!

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

I think I have made my point well enough, Sussex. If you still don´t get you don´t want to get it. Perhaps even the council is more understanding, generous and wiser than you are. I have send them an email yesterday and they have confirmed it, given me a reference number. Why should they not accept? I think it is fair offer on my side, with this they are not drawn into giving anybody exceptions, they can say that it is well justified, in that special case. Moreover, it is unlikely anybody else will take so much trouble in learning the town-map to that level. It is by far easier to do the licence anew, I can tell you that and you should damn well know, because you have done enough Brighton & Hove road knowledge yourself.

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

The more I think about this, the more I congratulate myself that I have come up with this. It is really elegant way out of this whole mess, a win-win situation by which we both can profit. I would be satisfied and they´d have that prodigy to which they can point to when it comes to the standard of road-knowledge and job-identification. There might be still some colleagues who´d think that I´d make too much fuss about myself, but they are always there, those people. We know that in this trade there are always some who begrudges someone something. Right or not right?

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

Now, who´s the f... master-race? The Germans never were, they just tried once, but blew it sadly. (And damn sad they blew it, I think sometimes! Why, would I love to be the f... Nazi-gauleiter of Sussex sometimes! Then I would make the rules, believe me!)

I have already been told by the HCO that they won´t accept the compromise, I´d have to do my licence as a first-time applicant.And they also had let me know, discreetly of course, that they are not even interested in a demonstration of my special knowledge. So, I might just let this flight go to sh..., why, it was only 77 euro for a return flight, exactly what would cost me one single night in a Brighton hotel and I don´t really feel in the mood of seeing Brighton right now. And what does it matter anyway, I have already invested some 20.000 Euros in my licence the first time and earned just enough to survive, last time.

Hey, guess what, I have watched Midnight Express yesterday (in the language of the f... master-race, of course, like I always do, I know my place, right, dumb German schmuck who thinks he can be a writer, in an Anglo-American dominated world-culture) (Only my sympathies have changed, I am with the Turks now, haha.)

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

Now, who´s the f... master-race? The Germans never were, they just tried once, but blew it sadly. (And damn sad they blew it, I think sometimes! Why, would I love to be the f... Nazi-gauleiter of Sussex sometimes! Then I would make the rules, believe me!)

I have already been told by the HCO that they won´t accept the compromise, I´d have to do my licence as a first-time applicant.And they also had let me know, discreetly of course, that they are not even interested in a demonstration of my special knowledge. So, I might just let this flight go to sh..., why, it was only 77 euro for a return flight, exactly what would cost me one single night in a Brighton hotel and I don´t really feel in the mood of seeing Brighton right now. And what does it matter anyway, I have already invested some 20.000 Euros in my licence the first time and earned just enough to survive, last time.

Hey, guess what, I have watched Midnight Express yesterday (in the language of the f... master-race, of course, like I always do, I know my place, right, dumb German schmuck who thinks he can be a writer, in an Anglo-American dominated world-culture) (Only my sympathies have changed, I am with the Turks now, haha.)

Did the Panzer MK IV come with a Meter and Roof sign mounting brackets as standard or were they Optional extras?...I'm assuming with a meter as they were not normally pre-booked and usually ranked and ready to roll.

No, let´s leave it at that with the WWII-talk, Bloodnock, you know I´m a whole lot less N_azi than the average SUN-reader.

I don´t get the allusion, Sussex, your way of saying, don´t worry about a hotel, come and stay at my place, have this piece of gateau and then later we have a chat at the office and I put a word in for you?

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

Well, who wouldn´t want to be this from time to time? It is of course just a distorted and very wrong fantasy!

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

So right now it´s about take off time for my flight with easy jet Strasbourg-Gatwick and I am not on it, maybe they announce me "with last call for" right now, I don´t know.

I´ll take care of other business in the following time first and that´s what the UK should as well instead of p...ing off foreign cab-driving writers. I think you have so many issues at hand at present, just think of the 18th, I would definitely vote yes, just to give you a lesson and make you think about yourselves.

You´ll here from me, bye for now.

Oh, I have just befriended myself with "too many taxis" on Facebook and saw that pic on their wall, haha.

_________________Jochen Lembke, Europe´s cab-driving writer and author of the best Hitch-hiker´s-Guide-to-the-Galaxy-volume-six ever written. Or else money back (haha.) My blog in English language: http://ejochenlembke.wordpress.com/

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